Tuesday, June 30, 2009

The Metaphors of Four Year-Olds (OK, so they're actually similes but it didn't sound as good)


So I just found this Father’s Day card that Primo made for David last weekend. He made him a lovely, labor-intensive cray-pas card that had written inside of it “Dear Daddy: I love it when you make up pretend stories. Love, Primo” and this card went along with a clay mask he molded of his face in art class (one of the perks of Montessori is that you get reeeeeally nice craft presents on holidays). But this other card I found today was like a secondary, back-up card, that he quickly jotted off with his speech therapist one day.

As you see, the card consists of a Xeroxed clip art picture of an armchair, complete with bag of “Tater Chips” and a large remote conPost Optionstrol. Attached to the bottom of the armchair is a long piece of paper with fill-in-the-blank sentences for which the child is supposed to supply the answer. They are all dad-related similes. Here is how my son’s card reads:

He’s as handsome as a prince.
He’s as smart as an owl.
He’s as tall as a Frankenstein.
He’s as funny as a little bunny FooFoo.
He’s as happy as a clown.
He’s as strong as a bull.
He’s as hungry as a monster.
He’s as nice as a doorman.

We don’t even have a doorman, folks, But that’s how much of a city kid Primo is. Nice as a doorman. It’s what every father aspires to.